Enabling pedagogies: engaging with students into and through higher education

Signs of students being ‘engaged’ or ‘disengaged’ in higher education are often interpreted through the lens of hyper-individualism: as being about an individual’s capability, commitment or deficit, as an attitude problem or behavioural issue. ‘Disengaged students’ are often described as disorganised, lazy or disrespectful, with many of these reproducing insidious classed, gendered and racialized inequalities and institutionalised discrimination. Drawing on pathways that provide inclusion in higher education, we explore how enabling pedagogies that apply critical evaluative, research-informed and continuous forms of reflection/action, are required throughout learning journeys to address socio-cultural inequalities and disengaging educational structures and pedagogies. Enabling pedagogical practices are essential for challenging and redressing discriminatory views and discourses that are institutionalised and invisible to many who inadvertently reproduce them. Enabling pedagogies are instead important for creating meaningful student engagement through the re-framing of the concepts of learner and teacher, and for developing powerful collective knowledges and capabilities.